


The very limit

by Etnoe



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:37:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4581006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/pseuds/Etnoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Turns out it's really easy to get the Antichrist nervous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The very limit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HappyLeech](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyLeech/gifts).



Cell phone to the ear and gazing out of his dorm window, listening to the rhythm of the voice on the other side more than what was actually being said, Brian came to the conclusion that Adam probably didn't sleep anymore. Adam hadn't said anything like that, but it was almost certainly the middle of the night in Rio de Janeiro. It would be for Pepper, and those were on nearly the same lines of whatsit, longitude, right? And then there was the ridiculous course load you got when you did drama and microbiology, and Wensley was definitely just having trouble keeping up with the micro-bio himself. So he was pretty sure Adam had quit sleeping. Handy, that.

"Hm."

The noise cut Adam right off. It wasn't the kind of excited that fit the conversation, probably; warm-sounding and positive, but too quiet. Usually Brian wouldn't get like that about Adam talking about his plays - he liked watching them, and really liked the cast & crew parties afterwards. "Huh?" he said, genially baffled.

"I'm listening," Brian assured Adam.

"Sound sort of like you're nodding off."

"Nah. Sound like ... 's nice to listen to." It sounded unconvincing, and Brian winced. He shoved a handful of the crisps in the bowl on his lap down his mouth. While yes, he _could_ have said how it was oddly genuinely impressive when Adam went into oratory mode each time, and just the thought of seeing him on-stage was something that brought up pride and pleasure, and it was a damn grand thing to have half the lighting techs in love with him because of how they managed to light up the curls of his hair and the best angles of his face, and the energy and love he spoke with was half climb-Everest-end-war-plant-rainforests inspiration and half something that cut you off at the knees and made the rest of you contrive to roll over like a puppy showing its belly ... it was all sort of soppy to go on like that, right?

Had to do something convincing, though.

"Looking forward to seeing you. You know why?"

"Yes," Adam said, confidently.

"Not sure you have an idea of the degree of it, mate." Brian winced again. Happily, this time - soppy, sure, but it felt like a sufficient amount parcelled out for a worthy cause. "I am, like. _Really_ looking forward to seeing you." He smacked his lips together in a drawn-out kissing sound. "All right, mate?"

*

"Pepper! I scared the Antichrist," Brian announced, boastfully, as soon as the ringing on the other end of the line stopped. "I kissed him through the phone."

"What?" Pepper said, with a sharper surprise than he thought warranted. "Like, really? Like a new superpower?"

"No, no. I mean mwah." He demonstrated the sound.

" _Oh_ ," she said with some relief. Would definitely have been weird, if he could really kiss people over the phone. Not the normal kind of weird they expected from each other at all. "Oh-- _did_ you? And what did you say? Can't see Adam being put off if you were just making jokes about something like that."

"We-e-e-ell..." He tried to figure out how soppy he could be with Pepper. She might think it was cute, or might not stop laughing at him all the next time they all met up. "Said I was looking forward to seeing him for his next play, just, he didn't know how much.

"You going to be there? We've got to have the pep rally."

"That joke got tired within a quarter-hour of my setting foot on American soil," she said waspishly. "But now I have to! That sounds... Wait, it scared him off?"

"Yeah, it was pretty funny. I think the phone fell right out of his hands."

"But ... that's not very like Adam, is it?"

*

"Probably expected it more from me or Pep," said Wensleydale, once Brian had thought over Pepper's worries - couldn't quite stop thinking about it, really - and had called up the other person involved to give a more worried recounting of the major news of the day. The line crackled a bit and scooped some of the depth out of his voice, but it was pretty good reception over in Sydney today. "I'm the queer friend, she's the girl friend. The girl friend also attracted to men, to be specific. You're the lad friend."

"Oh yeah. Guess I am the one out of us who'd never gone out with a bloke. I never did say anything when you or Adam did, though. Or Pepper, if we're particular about being specific."

Wensleydale snorted. "Not saying anything about it certainly isn't the same thing as indicating you'd do it too."

"S'pose not. Well, he ought to be get over the surprise soon enough." Brian felt a smile spread spontaneously over his face at the thought of Adam, having a clearer idea of how Brian felt about stuff. Like him. Them. All of the Them. He grinned even wider at the old name for their little group coming back to him.

"See if he gets back to you about it first. If not, we can talk about it at the moon landing, Thursday."

"Same day as my essay," Brian said glumly. "But yeah, yeah, I'll be there. We can talk about all of us, I guess, right? Now that I've broken the ice."

"Thoughtful of you," Wensleydale said disbelievingly. He might also be grinning, though - harder to tell with him than with the other two. There was a lurch in thinking about that as well, and satisfaction in the way Pepper was going to thump him in the arm to say hello.

"Very," Brian said on a slurp of soda, and they sorted out the snacks they were going to take along to the moon before saying bye. The goodbyes took longer than usual because they both made kissy sounds until it got frankly obscene and one of Brian's flatmates threw old socks at him.

*

Brian received a call next. Middle of the night, which he really didn't deserve, and from Adam, which didn't make sense. Adam kept track of the time zones they all stayed in by second nature.

"I can't do this," he told Brian, his confidence turned guilty. "We can't do this. I feel it would change all of our friendships too much. It'd just make a mess of things, really."

"Wanker," said Brian, dully. "Could've waited till we were all together, and not just dump it on me."

"I didn't want to have it be so that you're embarrassed in front of the others."

"Yeah, but, the three of us could have been embarrassed together."

"Brian," Adam said, voice going very peculiar, "what do you mean?"

*

They'd decided to leave off the moon landing. Instead they were in Adam's dorm room, which he had to himself. The other three all shared. (It was Adam's ambition to experience that aspect of uni to the fullest next, the nut.)

Brian was last to be popped over by Adam's powers. He took a look round the room: Adam perched alertly on the window seat, framed by the sun like the opposite of Batman, while Wensleydale and Pepper lay on the bed co-bicycling the air with their feet pressed together. Vigorously - Pepper looked like she would have slightly preferred to be kicking something and, denied, was expending her energy with air-bicycle speeding.

It was swiftly knocked off its airy path by Adam having a breakdown.

"It's - a scandal, is what it is! We'd all just be a scandal. Like, four? How would that work?"

"Like it does now," Pepper pointed out, and Adam's colour got higher.

"You! More than anyone - your reputation, they'd tear it to shreds back home! What they'd say, Pep!"

"And my virtue!" She clapped her hands to her cheeks, and then Adam nodded vigorously and echoed, "Your virtue!"

Silence.

"Are you feeling quite all right?" Wensleydale said, solicitous and frankly perplexed.

"Adam. Do you know how many people I've slept with?"

"One at a time, I bet!"

"Well, nobody's saying the four of us have to go at it like a rugby scrum all at once," Brian pointed out reasonably, and Adam just rolled into a little ball on the sill.

"Huh," Brian said. "The Antichrist is shy about orgies."

"Me too," Wensleydale offered. "I mean, I'm with this, but I really am not up for any rugby scrumming."

"Indecent," Adam said, muffled. "We can't."

"Haven't we more or less got there already?" Pepper said. "I usually look forward to moon landing days more than anything in my month. Not that I've told the rest of you, or expect anything, but I've stopped dating other people, and even sleeping with them."

"I'll stop that latter, as it's applicable," Wensleydale said. "If you'll have ... you know. Me. And you want that. And. You know."

"We can't just do that as if, as if it's decent!" Adam said, blushing furiously, and gazing at them like he was beating back every revelation he'd ever hoped to have. It was a very odd combination.

"I have an idea," Brian announced, decisively crumpling his crisps packet, and experienced the rare pleasure of Adam turning to him for guidance.

"You do?" he said wildly.

Brian leaned in and pecked him on the lips, then sat back and crossed his arms with a satisfied nod. "Phase 1 through all the rest of the phases, complete!"

Adam swore. Bright-red-cheeked, like he always used to be as a kid from amping up his natural complexion by all the running around he did.

"Back-up of data is important in these cases," Wensleydale murmured, and grabbed Brian's arm to pull him closer. They met halfway for the kiss - just a bit more thorough than the one with Adam, no need to make a production of it but no need to just act like it was all games, either.

Pepper sat up on the bed and wound her feet around Wensleydale's calf, then pressed a kiss to his neck. Nice.

But Adam probably wasn't squeaking for the right reasons. The reason looked like it really could be heart failure, in fact. "How - how can you just go ahead and do that? It's not how things happen!"

"Sure it is. For us. Would we be saying we're all right with it if we weren't? Would I, at the very least?" Pepper said. "Think about it."

"Nah, don't think at all," Brian advised. "Not about the whole thing. Just do what feels natural."

"And I believe you should take a moderate path between those two. There, now we've got all our bases covered," Wensleydale said.

Adam stared between the three of them. His ears were red now, too, which was interesting because Brian couldn't remember that happening before.

"Do we even know how baseball works? How to keep bases covered?" he blurted. "I'm going to find out right now!"

He barreled out of his own room.

"Was he muttering about 'too many movies rotting our brains'?" Pepper said, mouth an 'o'. "I don't understand how someone who never listens to his dad can sound so much like him!"

"The background radiation of hearing him talk all the time, even if he's not listening," Brian said. "Can always count on background radiation that way."

*

In another week, they were due to all meet on the moon. Instead, when the requesting tug came from Adam, it had the distinct overtone to it that there would be a surprise destination. Brian accepted.

And so did Wensleydale and Pepper. The three of them looked at a Tadfield sunset off the end of the local dam's pier.

"Thought it would be easier here," Adam said.

"In the heart of all things conservative?" Pepper said archly. Brian wasn't wasting time, though - he went to sit by Adam, putting an arm around his waist.

"It's where I've always had a lot of love. Growing, waiting for me, sending me away from it. Love's weird. I guess I can let it be."

They spent the afternoon pushing each other off the pier and occasionally helping each other back on. Same as always. But innocence could still contain kisses, and holding on to each other longer than had been normal when they were younger.


End file.
